The Art of Breathing

From author Janie DeVos comes a poignant and richly detailed novel set in 1950s North Carolina, where one young woman struggles to save her own life - and finds the strength to truly live it.

When Kathryn Cavanaugh steps over the threshold of the Pelham Sanatorium in 1954, she has no idea when, or if, she will ever leave it again. Despite the rise of promising new treatments, Tuberculosis is still feared and often fatal. But twenty-four-year-old Kate has proven her resilience before, leaving her Blue Ridge Mountain home for a very different life in the city with her ambitious attorney husband, Geoffrey. For the sake of her family, especially her young son, she's determined to get healthy again.

The sanatorium is a strange battlefield, with every patient fighting for survival amidst a numbing routine of tests, treatment, and enforced rest. Kate quickly finds camaraderie among the women on her ward - and a growing kinship with fellow patient Philip McAllister. As weeks pass, the hospital's confines come to offer more independence than Geoffrey's preoccupation with status ever allowed. And with this surprising new discovery comes the courage to contemplate the choices she has made - and, perhaps, the chance to breathe freely at last...